Sayu escapes the notice and admiration of Genshin Impact fans because she’s a ninja and a sneaky, sleepy one at that who rarely comes out into the open to aid the Travelers in battle. That said, she’s a very capable unit and some players have witnessed her glory in the Sumeru Dendro updates of Version 3.0 and 3.1. She was recently featured in the last or first half of Version 3.1 character banners and in this article, we’ll tell you how she’s an underrated unit and how you could build her in the Dendro meta.
Why Sayu is Underrated
Sayu is a 4-star claymore Anemo unit that doesn’t necessarily excel in one department like most other Anemo units. Sucrose and Kazuha are premium units for their Elemental Mastery support and reliable grouping abilities. Venti, the Anemo Archon, is the strongest crowd control unit in the game and his burst’s sub-dps potential is unmatched.
Heizou is a reliable melee catalyst dps who isn’t the best but he’s the next best thing to Xiao who’s one of the strongest DPS in the game and he’s Anemo too. Jean is one of the best most balanced units in the game who can fill multiple roles like a champ. She’s also one of the best healers in the game due to her ability to instantly heal your entire party with a huge chunk of HP from her burst.
Sayu here is an Anemo healer who also has EM functionality. She’s not as great a healer as Jean but she’s very reliable and one of the few characters in the game who can heal with her E skill. As for the EM-scaling side of her kit, she doesn’t buff her teammates in any way but parts of her skill and damage do scale from EM.
What does set Sayu apart is in fact a unique playstyle. With her E skill, you can roll at high speeds and this not only helps in overworld travelling but also when you hit enemies with it, you inflict Anemo DMG and Swirl. Her E skill, like all Anemo attacks, can also get imbued by the element it comes in contact with even though Pyro takes priority over other elements and gets imbued more easily. With this playstyle, you can just roll around the battlefield and hit enemies and swirl the elements on them to do tons Swirl damage.
Despite being a ninja, Sayu is best used in the spotlight- as the main star of your team even though the majority of your damage may still come from your support cast.
How To Build Sayu
Sayu’s healing scales off of ATK but her personal damage also scales off of EM. She’s a hybrid scaling unit who benefits from both ATK and EM. Sayu’s main strength is in Swirling elements on the battlefield so she needs a reliable amount of EM to be useful. At higher levels, her ascension talents also utilise a portion of her EM to aid in healing while you’re using your E skill on enemies.
If you’re going for a healer build you’ll need a lot of ATK with a secondary focus on EM and ER% since you want her healing burst up at all times. She also gets reliably worthy of investment with some Constellations. Her C1 truly makes her a good healer while her C6 turns her into Sonic the Hedgehog and you can just slap triple EM on and still get reliable healing out of her.
As a healer, Sayu will mainly be an off-field unit only useful for her healing elemental burst. If you instead want to play her kit and have fun rolling around, then an EM build is best. In the Dendro meta, the EM Sayu build is obviously preferable as she works best in Hyperbloom teams which scale off of EM. Below we’ve listed her best artifacts and weapons.
Artifacts
Sayu’s best artifact set is the Viridescent Venerer Set regardless of what you want to build or use her as.
As a healing unit, she will prioritize, ATK%, followed by ER and EM. Ideally about 150-160% ER is vital for her to serve the role of a reliable healer.
As an on-field EM unit, you can focus on her EM mainly followed by her ER% and then ATK.
Weapons
To fulfil her 150-160% ER needs, Favonius Greatsword is her best-in-slot 4-star weapon. You can also use the Inazuma craftable Katsuragikiri Nagamasa or the Sumeru craftable Forest Regalia which also suit her kit one way or another.
However, if you’ve managed that amount of ER from your artifacts and instead need to compensate for her EM, then the Rainslasher, Bloodtainted Greatsword and the new recently added 4-star claymore (from the Sumeru weapon set) Makhaira Aquamarine are also great.
Teams
Sayu is a flexible unit when she’s needed as a healer. As an EM unit, her best teammates are those whose elemental skills move alongwith the active character and damage surrounding enemies. These would be Kaeya, Xiangling, Barbara, Kuki and so on.
Kuki, Barbara, Sayu and Dendro Traveler make for an amazing Hyperbloom team in the Dendro meta. You can also use Kokomi instead of Barbara and Fischl or Yae Miko instead of Kuki.
Sayu was strengthened in the Dendro meta due to her ability to quickly roll around and Swirl to reduce enemy resistances while also applying elements to them for reactions. With more of her constellations she gets much more usable so we recommend building her only if you have her constellations. For now she can rest and sleep in your roster like the ninja she is.